This is my fear.
I wish I had other's opinion on the matter thinking that Apple will not lock down the MacOS, but I think it will happen eventually.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
What Intel software will you miss after the Arm transition?
- Thread starter Jyby
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I wish I had other's opinion on the matter thinking that Apple will not lock down the MacOS, but I think it will happen eventually.
I think it is more what some people are worried will happen, not what has happened.
Well, Macs in general are more locked down than they used to be with the T2 chip. If it is only about security, Apple seems to be failing on that front based off of recent news.
If things like the T2 chip is the direction that Apple is going in, it is completely understandable that Mac users have concerns of the negative consequences that AS might bring.
Craig said Apple won't be locking down the Mac, cause it won't be a Mac it will just a iPad with a big screen. Also u can run unsigned macOS of older versions on AS Macs and can boot off external drives that run macOS in Apple Silicon Macs.
Bottom line, apple is not locking down Mac and if u don't want the security popups when installing apps, then disable gatekeeper in terminal.
Bottom line, apple is not locking down Mac and if u don't want the security popups when installing apps, then disable gatekeeper in terminal.
Adobe's DNG converter is dead handy, but I'm sure they'll update it to ARM, so that's not a huge problem. I would miss it if they gave up on it. Furthermore I still use Photoshop CS4, because in 2020 it has a sweet spot of performance and features. CS4's version of Camera Raw added a handy graduated filter that wasn't in CS2, for example. The DNG converter is useful because the last version of Camera Raw for CS4 only supports cameras up until around 2012 or so.
Obviously Adobe would love it if I stopped using CS4, but it works and it's powerful enough for my needs. The image processor and action scripting has a neat mixture of simplicity and power. A while back I wrote a blog post about Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020; for whatever reason the game doesn't have a screenshot key, so the only way to take screenshots of the game is to grab the entire workspace, which includes the contents of my second monitor. It would be personally embarrassing if the world discovered that I have hundreds of tabs of top glamour legend Ana Foxxx open in the background while I'm pretending to fly a plane. That's just a hypothetical example.
It was the work of a few moments to generate an action that took a directory of images that looked like this:
Into something that looked like this:
With more sensible names than "screenshot (213)". I don't like filenames that have spaces or punctuation marks. It's bound to be a problem somewhere down the line. MS Flight Simulator 2020 looks fantastic, although obviously it's not available for MacOS, and probably never will be.
The oldest Windows application I still occasionally use is CoolEdit, from 1996 - it still works in Windows 10. I find the interface easier to use than Audacity, but I imagine it would run fine under emulation given that it was designed for machines that have less processing power than a modern smartphone battery.
Obviously Adobe would love it if I stopped using CS4, but it works and it's powerful enough for my needs. The image processor and action scripting has a neat mixture of simplicity and power. A while back I wrote a blog post about Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020; for whatever reason the game doesn't have a screenshot key, so the only way to take screenshots of the game is to grab the entire workspace, which includes the contents of my second monitor. It would be personally embarrassing if the world discovered that I have hundreds of tabs of top glamour legend Ana Foxxx open in the background while I'm pretending to fly a plane. That's just a hypothetical example.
It was the work of a few moments to generate an action that took a directory of images that looked like this:
Into something that looked like this:
With more sensible names than "screenshot (213)". I don't like filenames that have spaces or punctuation marks. It's bound to be a problem somewhere down the line. MS Flight Simulator 2020 looks fantastic, although obviously it's not available for MacOS, and probably never will be.
The oldest Windows application I still occasionally use is CoolEdit, from 1996 - it still works in Windows 10. I find the interface easier to use than Audacity, but I imagine it would run fine under emulation given that it was designed for machines that have less processing power than a modern smartphone battery.
Things I would need to make sure worked, if and when I would buy Apple Silicon Hardware:
- Cisco AnyConnect VPN Client
- Skype for Business
- VeraCrypt
- Microsoft Remote Desktop
- Most of the other dozen or so Remote-Viewing thingies like Zoom, WebEx etc.pp.
- VSC
- git
- Sublime
- VNC Viewer
- Python
- Hopefully, the Python Openstack client easily compiles on Apple Silicon
- and ansible
- stuff like Terraform
I think that's about it.
- Cisco AnyConnect VPN Client
- Skype for Business
- VeraCrypt
- Microsoft Remote Desktop
- Most of the other dozen or so Remote-Viewing thingies like Zoom, WebEx etc.pp.
- VSC
- git
- Sublime
- VNC Viewer
- Python
- Hopefully, the Python Openstack client easily compiles on Apple Silicon
- and ansible
- stuff like Terraform
I think that's about it.
I have specific needs and use cases but I don't really want to change my tools so I'd miss a few Windows programs that I use under wine: WinMerge (for comparing and merging text files) and 7-zip File Manager (for creating or altering 7-zip archives). I have tried mac based compare/merge tools such as TextWrangler but WinMerge is still the one I go back to all the time (and of course I use it on my PC as well so nothing new to learn). Same applies to 7-zip FM. I don't expect them to ever be ported as native macOS apps so using them via wine is something I'm sticking with.
I'm wishful thinking/hoping for an ARM64 version of wine: a translator program that takes ARM64 Windows executables and runs them on Apple Silicon macOS. Now that would make the transition painless for me. Both of the programs I mentioned are open source so building an ARM64 version of them could be done if their developers did not want to do it themselves.
I'm wishful thinking/hoping for an ARM64 version of wine: a translator program that takes ARM64 Windows executables and runs them on Apple Silicon macOS. Now that would make the transition painless for me. Both of the programs I mentioned are open source so building an ARM64 version of them could be done if their developers did not want to do it themselves.
to a degree, this is correct but native apps will need to be codesigned. Whether you believe this makes the platform more locked down is arguable but it is something most people are not aware of (it's mainly something that developers must be aware of otherwise they cannot distribute their apps).
Apple Silicon Macs to Require Signed Code
It may of been to early to talk about it at the conference. Apple's not really interested in what software will/won't work from any other place BUT the app store, why should they ? its never been their territory and its up to public to see if it their third-party app work which is why Apple sent ARM specific-based Mac mini (maxed out 16Gig models) to developers who are testing their software...
That's why you have places like https://roaringapps.com/ to do that. : )
Last edited:
That's why you have places like https://roaringapps.com/ to do that.
So going to their search for native Silicon etc. Apps I thought it would be smart to put in Logic Pro, since it was shown in WDC videos running on Silicon, supposedly native. This site has it as uncertain. It also has Logic Pro X listed twice, once as Logic Pro and once as Logic Pro X. I wouldn't trust the data they collect much. Here's the part where Apple states flatly both Final Cut Pro and Logic are native already:
Last edited:
Not that many; I mainly use command line applications (generally cross-platform), JetBrain's IDEs (Java) and open source applications like LibreOffice. Applications like MountainDuck and Audacity their compatibility status are unclear at the moment unfortunately.
A lot of Homebrew software is not compatible yet, where gcc is I think the biggest problem.
A lot of Homebrew software is not compatible yet, where gcc is I think the biggest problem.
People are “worried” about it since Mac Apple Store came out.
How are they more “locked down”? The T2 chip does not prevent you from running arbitrary software on your machine. I can still download and compile whatever I want and Apple Silicon doesn’t change it.
Apple has worked out a way to get payment for every (native) app on macOS. Also Apple now has the power to stop an app from working on macOS. Then in a year or two we will hear how Apple has dropped support for intel apps.
You are no longer able to replace the SSD on Macs with the T2 chip, and it has nothing to do with some of them being soldered. The ones that are not soldered also cannot be replaced.
The T2 chips also adds more steps if someone wants to boot from something other than Apple's SSD.
That sounds like being more "locked down" to me.
That's not true.
Install or replace SSD modules in your Mac Pro (2019) - Apple Support
Learn how to install SSD modules in your Mac Pro and how to use Apple Configurator to set them up for your Mac.
1TB SSD Kit for Mac Pro
The 1TB SSD Kit for Mac Pro enables you to upgrade the internal SSD storage capacity of your Mac Pro. This kit, containing two 512GB modules, replaces the current SSD module(s) in your system. Installation required.
www.apple.com
I think there are different things that "locked down" might mean. I am primarily considering the freedom of the software choice — is the user able to obtain and install any software they want from any source they want, or are they limited in their choices (like on iOS)? What I see here is that Apple has been tightening the security with code-signing etc. — but so far I fail to see any indications that the freedom of software choice is going away. The obligatory code-signing on AS Macs is a bit worrying though, especially if this locks software distribution behind the Apple Developer Program paywall.
On the other hand, things like changing the hardware, hacking the base OS or choice of the OS are a different kind of "freedom" — and Apple never cared much about that. You for example mention that SSD cannot be changed... but de-facto, user-replaceable hard drives on Mac laptops were not supported for a long while. They just happened to work (mostly) because Apple used the same interface as everyone else, but the third-party drives lacked the proprietary firmware to properly interface with the OS.
Anyway, if this is the kind of freedom you care about, then Apple products are — and always were — a terrible choice for you. I don't happen to care about this freedom at all, but having control over the software of my machine is an absolute must on which I will never bend. The moment Apple tries to control that aspect, I am leaving their ecosystem and not coming back.
This is news to me, I stand corrected. I wonder if there is such a thing on other T2 Macs though.
Is there a path in place to replace the SSD in the iMac Pro with the T2 as well? Or just the
But... I would still consider it more locked down as you now need additional equipment that wasn't required in the past.
I completely agree.
Not until recently.
The SSDs in iMac Pros can be replaced as service parts but they're not made available at retail. This is no different than was the case with the Retina MacBook Pros and Macbook Air prior to the T2 except that there's no 3rd party adapter available to use non-Apple SSDs with the iMac Pro.
That isn't what I was asking.
I was asking if the T2 chip prevents a user from swapping the SSD in the iMac Pro, or is there a path in place by Apple to allow the swap like the one you posted for the Mac Pro.